Treating the face in 3 steps: nose, chin and oval

There are three essential aspects to consider when treating the face: the oval of the face and, above all, when we look at the face’s profile, the nose and the chin.

Anti Age Magazine: Can you tell us about the technique you call the “Eiffel Tower Nose Lift®”?

Dr Hervé Raspaldo: On the nose, I often use a method that I’ve called the “Eiffel Tower Nose Lift®”, which is resumed in an article I wrote for P.R.S., an influential American journal in the field of aesthetic surgery.

When we want to reshape the nose, either we perform surgical rhinoplasty (lifting the tip, removing any bumps), or we use hyaluronic acid injections, which allow us to lift the tip of the nose and disguise any bumps. Like when the base of the Eiffel Tower was built, the first stage focuses on the base of the nose, where I inject a volumising hyaluronic acid into the nasolabial angle between the nose and the lip. These injections lift the tip of the nose. Then we move onto the second stage: projecting and positioning the tip in a more attractive way. We carefully reshape the tip in the third stage. The fourth stage involves camouflaging any bumps with hyaluronic acid injections above and below, to make the nose look straight.

Medical rhinoplasty using just injections allows us to reshape the nose in a non-invasive way. This makes the procedure much gentler than surgery, which requires a general anaesthetic. The patient must also wear a nasal dressing for 6 days before they can see any results, and often suffer from swelling and bruising. Even though medical rhinoplasty cannot correct every flaw, we can immediately achieve very natural-looking results and the patient can get back to their normal life very quickly.

AAM: Treating the chin is becoming an ever more popular request, especially for weak chins. Why do you treat this area?

HR: This used to be the “poor relation” in our profession. We are so used to working on the nose, the lips, the forehead and on wrinkles, that we had somewhat neglected the chin. In men, the most desired chin shape is a square one, which is sign of virility. If you look at the chin from the side, you can see that it is often set back, which does not look very attractive. So, my aim is to bring the chin forward, using hyaluronic acid injections.

In women, however, I aim to make the chin more pointy, more delicate, to make the face more triangular and heart-shaped, which makes it look prettier.

AAM: For the oval of the face, you need to combine several techniques. Which ones?

HR: We have seen that, by altering the shape of the chin we can make it project more, which helps to make the oval of the face look better when we look at the face from the side. If we look at the face from the front, we need to reduce the volume of the muscles of mastication, called the masseters, using botulinum toxin injections (botox). Here, we are correcting the part of the face that widens as we age, becoming more square-shaped. By injecting botulinum toxin into the masseters, we can reduce the volume of these muscles and, as a consequence, reduce the flat appearance of the lower face. It becomes more triangular, making the patient look younger and more attractive.

It is worth noting that, in the near future, a new product that has already been approved in the United States and in Northern Europe will be available in Switzerland and France: deoxycholic acid (Belkyra®). This allows us to reduce fat without surgery, with a simple injection, and can therefore be used to get rid of a double chin. This procedure will be compatible with hyaluronic acid and botulinum toxin injections.

Doctor Herve Raspaldo

Surgeon in Geneva. Licensed by the French National Medical Association in Surgery of the Face and Neck. Recognized in Switzerland (Geneva and Vaud) as an FMH specialist in Surgery. Expert trainer in surgical anatomy and rejuvenation methods for the face by injection. Clinic head/tutor at a university.